MAYOR TO URGE REMOVAL OF RED-LIGHT CAMERAS

‘I think people are conditioned now to slow down,’ says Don Higginson

Poway Mayor Don Higginson will recommend to the City Council next week during his State of the City address that the city should terminate its contract with a private firm that operates red-light cameras at three intersections.

“I think they have served their purpose,” Higginson said Tuesday. “I think people are conditioned now to slow down.”

The three intersections have been equipped with red-light cameras off and on since 1997 and continually since 2005 under the same private contractor.

After the speech, the council is expected to discuss the future of the traffic safety devices in light of decisions being made statewide to discontinue their use — including most recently in San Diego.

The Poway cameras are at Scripps Poway Parkway and Community Road, Ted Williams Parkway and Pomerado Road, and Poway Road at Pomerado Road.

Higginson says in a memo to the council that safety is improving at the intersections, but not greatly.

In the seven years before the cameras, the total number of broadside accidents for all three intersections was 62 (or 8.9 per year).

In the seven years after the cameras, there were 29 broadside accidents (or 4.1 per year) — a 53 percent reduction, according to the memo.

However, less-severe rear-end accidents at the intersections have increased by 8 percent.

“This is common at intersections with red-light photo enforcement, as drivers become more aware of the cameras and tend to brake suddenly,” Higginson said.

In the seven years before the cameras, 48 rear-end accidents occurred at the three intersections (or 6.9 per year). In the seven years after, 52 (or 7.4 per year) occurred.

“It’s sort of a wash,” Higginson said Tuesday.

The cost to the city of operating the cameras — which a private company, Redflex Traffic Systems Inc., administers — has ranged over the last five years from $286,541 to $392,770.

However, revenues from fines have always exceeded expenditures, and that money has been used for other traffic safety ventures.

Higginson said the city is soon expected to receive a windfall of about $185,000 as the state transfers operation of a traffic safety program to the San Diego Association of Governments. That money can be used to pay for things that the red-light revenue might have paid for, he said.